GOG.com Implements Court-Required Changes; Uses Geo-IP to Determine Location for Witcher 2 PurchasesIf you’ve been paying attention to news about the CD Projekt RED group, you’ve possibly heard that a French court made a judgement about a few things that were in dispute between CD Projekt RED and Namco Bandai Partners. Most of the decision doesn’t influence GOG.com, but one of the rulings from the court does: according to the findings of the court, the method that we have been using to determine what location a game purchaser is located at when they buy a copy of The Witcher 2 (and, as such, what version and price they are presented with) needs to be changed.GOG.com has stated for a long time now that we believe that the best security is asking only for the minimum of information that we need to successfully transact business with our customers. Our opinion is still that including things like determining your location via Geo-IP, because there are several possible flaws with that system. However, in order to keep selling The Witcher 2, we will need to implement a Geo-IP based system for determining your location, per the orders of the court.

We will be implementing this system immediately; you will see that your local currency’s price is now featured on the product page when you visit it, based on your IP address. Since we've already announced the price for this game would be the same flat price everywhere during the Holiday Sale (which ends on January 2nd, 2012, at 23:59 EST Time), we’re not going to change the pricing for the Witcher 2 until this sale ends.

We remain committed to user privacy and keeping your information as safe and secure as we can. Further, while your profile’s location is, by order of the court, determined via Geo-IP when you purchase a copy of The Witcher 2, you can still set your country location for the forums as you would like, and your location doesn’t matter for buying any other games on GOG.com.

If you have already purchased your copy of the Witcher 2, we won’t be changing anything on your already-bought copy, just as if you had a boxed copy on a physical shelf instead of a virtual box on your GOG.com shelf.

…, and your location doesn’t matter for buying any other games on GOG.com.

I think these people really know what their customers like :D

turian

December 25th, 2011 13:46

they try too hard. this game isnt that new anymore.

tolknaz

December 25th, 2011 17:23

Regional policies (incl. pricing, availability, censoring etc.) is by far the most annoying "feature" of the digital distribution era. And now GOG is infected with that virus too thanks to Namco Bandai.

pox67

December 26th, 2011 10:28

Geo IP is pretty much meaningless now though. You can setup a VPN and pretend to be from any country in the world to get the best price.

aries100

December 28th, 2011 14:42

How is a french court able to decide over what goes on in a Polish company? And isn't Namco Bandai in Japan or Korea?

Zygo

December 28th, 2011 21:33

Contract details decides where a case is heard. N-B collects the money for Euro retail sales, so can withhold that money as leverage, and the court will levy a fine for every day over the limit CDP takes to implement its decision. In this case N-B basically equals Atari/ Infogrames' old Euro distribution business and since Infogrames was a french based company, a french court was used.